A transnational language teacher educator's autoethnographic pursuit of reflexivity in Hong Kong

Abstract

Language teacher educators all around the world work in multiple countries and institutions throughout their careers across institutional, national, and academic cultures. As higher education becomes more transnational in some regions (including Hong Kong), it has also become more common for language teacher educators to construct transnational identities. This autoethnographic self-study shares the author's transnational identity as informed by professional tensions he experienced while transitioning to a new institutional and academic culture in Hong Kong as a language teacher educator. As he narrates his story, he unpacks how his philosophies and practices informed one another as he constructed his professional identities in different cultural contexts and contact zones and elaborates on his identity work while revising his practices in his new professional contact zone. As an early-career language teacher educator, he shows how engaging in autoethnographic narrative helped him to adopt a reflexive lens to critically examine his professional engagements across academic cultures and discourses.